German attitudes at work

I can confirm this. Two cases::
An Irish friend who took a job in Frankfurt and who found her German co-workers very unfriendly, as she thought. She would go into the office, take her coat off, sit down and start talking about last night's TV. Silence, total lack of interest. She thought they didn't like her until someone explained, "we come here to work, not to talk about TV".
Secondly, a close friend of mine who mentioned that she would be late home on the grounds that a colleague had injured her arm so my friend, a normally caring and friendly person, had to take on extra work. A couple of days later I asked her how her colleague was getting on. A comple blank look.
"Which colleague?".
"The one who injured her arm. How is she?"
"I have no idea. I go there to work, not to inquire about my colleagues health."

Now I don't find these people difficult to work with at all, one knows where one stands, one gets on with the work. Perhaps best described by the German saying, "Dienst ist Dienst und Schnapps ist Schnapps".